One of the more exciting new releases on the 2025 TV schedule is Season 2 of Rian Johnson and Natasha Lyonne’s Poker Face, which just started streaming its first three episodes on Peacock. The new season has some A+ guest stars, chief among them being the Oscar-nominated star of Wicked, Cynthia Erivo. Her episode kicks off the season, which was a smart move for the powers-that-be given her newfound super stardom. However, as it turns out, Wicked wasn’t even taken into consideration when the casting came together. The real story involves a series of coincidences that the showrunner simply refers to as “good fortune.”
Cynthia Erivo plays five characters in the episode, and does so masterfully. Such a synopsis is incredibly enticing for any Wicked fan, but given that the show was cast well before the box office smash and Oscar nominations, Wicked wasn’t even considered. I sat down with showrunner Tony Tost to talk all things Poker Face Season 2, which is when this came up about the timing of the casting and Wicked’s success that followed:
I think that was good fortune. But Rian [Johnson] is a big fan of Cynthia's. He's a big theater guy, and so it was very much just like, who's an actress that would not just be able to do this, but would really crush it, like in the way that I feel like she does. In this way that embraces the fun of it, and get the tone of it and everything else… I guess I didn't even think about it when we cast it, the Wicked of it, which obviously doesn't hurt at all. But it very much came from [Rian Johnson’s] immense appreciation of her talent.
Tony Tost
So it turns out that Rian Johnson is simply a big theater buff, and as a result, a huge fan of Cynthis Erivo’s. It’s nice to hear that she wasn’t cast based on clout. Instead, Johnson believed that she would come to play and understand the absurd, quirky and very specific tone of the show. The five characters she plays are sisters, and watching her switch between them really does feel like a masterclass in acting. Once again, Rian Johnson’s instincts were on point.
Johnson’s most notable work comes from the Knives Out movies, for which he has been nominated for two Academy Awards. The cast of those films also happens to be rather stacked and diverse, much like Poker Face, and now I just wish that Cynthia Erivo was set to appear in the upcoming Wake Up Dead Man. Thankfully, there’s another film of Erivo’s on the way that we can look forward to: a little flick you may have heard of called Wicked: For Good.
It must be a daunting task creating the follow-up to such a successful first installment, not just at the box office, but in terms of the film’s glowing reviews. Jon M. Chu and company seem to have it covered, however, as Wicked’s presence on VOD has done nothing but fuel demand for the sequel. Fans have been able to pick the film apart and notice the foreshadowing details that are paving the way for Wicked: For Good. Now we just have to wait patiently until it’s in theaters on November 21.
In the meantime, you can catch Cynthia Erivo in the first episode of Poker Face Season 2 with a Peacock subscription! As for everything else in the world of film and television, keep it right here at CinemaBlend for the latest.
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